Laundry Room Safety Tips

October 13, 2016 at 4:16 PM

Although a laundry room may seem like a harmless space in your home, it is actually a rather dangerous space. Thousands of people face fire and water damage as well as injuries each year. Check out these tips to become more aware of dangers in your laundry room and how to prevent personal harm and property damage.

laundry_room_safety.jpg

Lint Build Up 

  1. Lint builds up is one of the most commonly forgotten, but the easy-to-take care of tasks in a laundry room. Remember to clean your lint screen in between each load of laundry! Not doing so poses a major fire hazard. If you don’t clean your lint screen, your machine could get engulfed in flames eventually, which would like set fire to the rest of your home.

Also, at least once a year, pull out your dryer and vacuum the back of it and as much of the duct as you can reach.

Replace Your Dryer Duct

  1. Get rid of your flimsy, thin foil dryer duct and replace it with a rigid metal duct! Foil accordion ducts are magnets for lint build up and they also bend easily which collects lint. Once you replace your duct with a rigid metal one, make sure it is installed straight and short. A bent dryer duct also slows drying time, and if it’s too long it’s a lot harder to clean! Also remember to go outside of your home and check the end point of your dryer vent where the hot area is released to make sure it’s not clogged with lint.

Important Drying Tip: Do not dry items that are stained with combustible fluids such as gasoline or furniture polish.

 Upgrade Your Washer Hose

  1. If you have a rubber washer hose, replace it with a reinforced braided washer hose to avoid leaks, cracks, and tears. For an added measure of security, turn off your hot and cold water valve after using your washing machine each time. A broken washer machine hose can flood your house with running water at a rate of 600 gallons an hour! This is damage you definitely want to prevent. 

Also: Make sure the hose that removes the dirty water during the spin cycle is secure, so dirty water doesn’t go everywhere! 

Poison Prevention

  1. This might seem obvious, but it is surprisingly still an issue: Keep your laundry detergents, bleach, and other cleaning supplies out of harms reach! These are poisonous, but still, hundreds of children and pets accidently consume these items each year because they’re not stored properly.

Use Child Locks On Your Machines

  1. Following on a similar note, as the previous point; engage the child locks on your washer and dryer machine if you have them. This will prevent children and pets from getting into and activating the machines. If your machines don’t have child locks, consider putting a lock on your laundry room door.

Keep Your Space Safe

If you’ve recently moved into your first home and have never had to manage a personal laundry room, we hope these tips have been useful! When living in an apartment building, dorm or anywhere there is a community laundry room, tenants don’t have to work about many of these logistics EXCEPT removing the lint from the lint screen. Always remember to do this simple, but important act. And to prevent damage from an overflowing washing machine or a malfunctioned hose, purchase one of our Suds Sentry Washing Machine Pans today!



Tags: washing machine overflow laundry
Category: Laundry Room Trends

Please add a comment

You must be logged in to leave a reply. Login »

Category List


Tag List


Tag Cloud



Archive

2015

2016

2017

2018